This video offers an apocalyptic warning from Joel Bylos, as the game director on The Secret World has recently discovered the alleged Mayan prophecy. The clip includes the Australian developer's concerns about this and concludes with him running through the Funcom offices warning the powers-that-be about the pending disaster, and imploring them to give gamers the chance to try The Secret World before the end of days by making the MMORPG free-to-play. This concludes with a "to be continued," and at no point does anyone say there will be a change to the game's business model, but it seems like a strange thing to joke about if nothing is going to come of it. In the conspiratorial tone of the game, word on the video included the following note: "According to Joel, the video is apparently the first in a series that he is putting together to bring attention to what he calls ‘the end of all things’. Don’t watch it; it’s just nonsense, really. Especially that bit near the end where he tries to force the corporate hand to relinquish the subscription requirement."

It's not even that, Prez. It's the fact that nothing out there has come up that really warrants a sub. Nearly every MMO has problems with constant content (except Rift for some ungodly reason...one of the devs must be a devoted little shrew), especially in the end-game, so nothing except the much-vaunted WoW seems to be even worth it. Bring out a game that drips with content and playability and a story, something REALLY and TRULY mind-blowing and innovative (there's that little word again), and I don't think people would mind. Heck, I pay $15/month for iRacing and couldn't be happier (not to mention $11-$14 each for extra tracks and cars). It's worth far more than that, IMO. But if you're not a sim-racer, you'd scoff at that. GW2 was close to the money with the innovation and content thing, but any major MMO nowadays has to really reach for it if they're going to be able to sell a $50 game along with a $12-$15/month sub...(for the record, if they had brought out that HALO MMO and it kicked ass, I would have subbed for it, no question)...

=-Rigs-=

'Who am I?...I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you are EVER going to see. GOD sent me.'

Hellbinder wrote on Dec 11, 2012, 01:51:This game was built and advertized as FTP for at least 2 years before the sudden change to pay to play one year from release.

The whole thing stinks to high heaven as far as i am concerned.

Morons....

You know, I keep reading this and yet I can never remember Funcom stating that TSW was going to be free to play at launch.This goes all the way back to . . . what was it, 2009, when they had that "which secret society are you" gimmick on their website.

I played in the Beta a little bit. I was planning to check it out for a month perhaps under subscription. But then these hit me: Guild Wars 2, Hitman Absolution, Dishonored, Skyrim, Swtor FTP?, The Walking Dead adventure game, Batman Arkham City.

Too many games and too little time to play. If TSW goes FTP, I will check it out .. eventually. I am done with subscription MMOs.

Give me a break. It's not as if the game doesn't already have a cash shop. This was going to happen, and they were ready for it. It's not like it's the first time. Also the sub + micro is the reason I avoided the game in the first place. Aside from what I view as shitty business practices, the game itself seemed decent.